distic
3mo ago
Then just change the rules? For example make any deadly touch eliminatory, so that no one says "I'm going to leave myself wide open and go for an uncovered afterblow" . I suspect the problem is that you want tournaments to be more spectacular than realistic (if the adversaries are more conservative it might get a bit boring)
distic
4mo ago
Cyprus is a very small country with 1 million inhabitants, and Turkey invaded a third (not half) of the country and its population. 300 000 people is the same order of magnitude as just the losses during the war in Ukraine.
About Syria, it's a mess. Everyone and their friend owns some part of Syria. If you can tell me more about it I'm curious, honestly. How many Turkish soldiers are their in Syria? What part of the territory do they control?
distic
4mo ago
No those governments weren't autocratic given that the power has swiftly switched hands. Sure they were and are still corrupt, but the corruption level is continuously decreasing since those revolutions.
distic
4mo ago
I'm pretty sure Russian or Chinese nukes in Portugal would have an important effect on the geopolical balance
distic
4mo ago
What is your theory exactly? The proof that Ukraine is a threat to Russia is that Russia decided to increase the threat level? If Ukraine in NATO is dangerous to Russia, what about Finland and Sweden then? The NATO threat on Russia plays absolutely no role in the actions of both sides (excepted as a propaganda tool) therefore it is unimportant.
distic
4mo ago
Yes it can because:
-
it is not important for Russia: it's just an excuse (once again, if they felt threatened they just increased the threat)
-
It's not important for NATO, given that the west has never really promised anything to Ukraine.
Therefore it seems to me you all say it is "important", but if it's neither important for Russia (their policy proves it) nor for NATO, I don't really think it can be important "per se"
distic
4mo ago
It's perfectly possible to decrease the threat level significantly, for example by verifiably decreasing the stockpile of nuclear weapons both sides, establishing verifiable demilitarized zones both sides of the border,...
distic
4mo ago
You think that Red Tribe wants to share the country with Canadians?
No? The republicans would have no problem sharing the country with the canadians as long as they don't have to share power
distic
4mo ago
In what dream world do you live to think that Canada could be annexed while the US remains somewhat democratic?
distic
4mo ago
Nations are not individuals with agency, and cannot have "allies" and "enemies"
Since alliances are signed in the name of the nations, and are biding independently of the government ; and since wars are declared in the name of nations, only nations can have actual allies and enemies.
distic
4mo ago
Such are the glories of trade, both sides of it are better off for having the opportunity to engage in it
Yes, but no. The relationship is not even, the US got more value out of it, and on top of that they get intelligence because the tech is used to spy on everyone. It would not be tolerated from any other country.
because they're not contributing to the protection of the network, and the Americans are.
They are spending less, but they are still spending, and they are not responsible for the fact that the US started dubious war they could not win, which costed a lot. When the US called NATO article 5 against Afghanistan, no one betrayed the alliance even though the threat for the global security was very minor.
Anyway it can't be reverted, the trust is lost now.
distic
6mo ago
One of the rules of this place is to be charitable, and I believe that an obvious charitable reading of “leftists don’t care about child rape” is something akin to “policies that leftists champion lead to child rape and so on.”
In this sentence you don't even try to prove you have been charitable, you are just asking others to be charitable with you. Basically "I don't really follow the rules, but I think no one can tell it because it would also break the rules".
distic
2mo ago
direct connections to the Republican president?
The president himself is not really an example on those matters
distic
3mo ago
Unless that includes God or Nature as intent sources
Yes it does if you believe nature or God have intents (it works better with God than nature, as most people who think that nature has intent also think that nature is a kind of god). People who don't think God exists or nature has intents also don't think there are purposes in nature.
Intended purpose means that the way you use the tool now (the purpose it's used for now) is what it was built for (the purpose of its creator). For example if you use your shoes to protect your feet it's their intended purpose, but if you use them to kill a fly it's not (presumably).
distic
3mo ago
A few years months ago, before Elon Musk bought twitter, there was a very popular opinion here on the motte, and probably also among conservatives, that freedom of speech should not be limited in any way, whether directly by the government, or by powerful actors like social medias. When big tech fired people due to their right wing political opinions, conservatives were defending them while liberals were saying things like "they are bigots, they must be improductive anyway".
I don't know what happened, but it seems that a lot of people who had a very broad definition of free speech switched to a very precise and restricted one.
distic
4mo ago
But Ireland and Portugal have also a relativemy weak military and they aren't particularly threatened
distic
4mo ago
Yes we shouldn't have let Turkey do that, but it seems to me the orders of magnitude involved in those wars is not similar at all
distic
4mo ago
I don't think capitalism will fail and Trump will die with it. I think capitalism will survive but Trump will be destroyed in the process. Americans may be unsatisfied with the way the world works, but they just have unrealistic expectations.
distic
4mo ago
Regime change is fine as long as border change isn't?
It's not about being fine or not, it's about disproving the claim that Russia is only interested in protecting itself against NATO
distic
4mo ago
They lost the soft war, so had to settle for a hard one.
No they "had to" nothing. The best way to ensure security is to build trust with your neighboors and not to sponsor corrupted autocratic governments
distic
4mo ago
Europe has a capital market problem but it has no innovation problem. So American companies use the research done in both US and EU and put it to the market (like they do in Facebook AI Research and DeepMind). Or do you think both labs are useless? Huggingface was also created in France untiel they had a need for more funding.
The inexistence of European Big Tech is at the US advantage (they get skills without a competition).
distic
6mo ago
We have had these arguments (and internal mod discussions) since the reddit days, and whenever someone proposes a "solution" that will achieve perfect balance, it turns out that solution maps precisely to "moderate exactly to the degree that would make this place conform to my preferred state."
"User driven moderation" or whatever you call it was a bad idea and a very good way to overmoderate any users in the minority. The only thing that makes sense is rules-based moderation...
distic
3mo ago
Likely giving other nations time to choose (with us or against us), and slapping the nations who chose to align with China with huge tariffs in 90 days.
If that was the plan, it's pretty dumb. First you can't really un-declare a (commercial) war. Second, if you want people to side with you, you don't start a fight with them. Third, it puts everyone except China and the US in a better negociating position with those two, because they can play one against the other.
Given that the first comment has been removed, I might have misread yours, but it seems to me you were arguing in favor of incentivizing people to leave the country according to their opinions.
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